


The Sleepover

by codswallop



Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Fever, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Sickfic, gen - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-03
Updated: 2016-02-16
Packaged: 2018-04-02 16:56:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4067554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/codswallop/pseuds/codswallop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For ariadnes_string's prompt in her <a href="http://ariadnes-string.livejournal.com/164469.html?page=5">Running Hot 3 fever fic meme</a>, featuring a sick Douglas attempting to sleep on the plane.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ariadnes_string](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariadnes_string/gifts).



> This fic takes place sometime in series 2, prior to Douglas's divorce from Helena.
> 
> Now complete! Whee.

Martin nearly didn’t pick up his mobile when it rang. He’d just finished his final delivery of the day, and all he wanted to do was go home and fall into bed for eleven or twelve hours. Then he saw that it was Arthur calling. The last time he’d let Arthur go to voicemail, the message had gone on for twenty-two minutes. 

“Hello, Martin Crieff speaking."

"Skip! Oh, good, I was afraid you weren’t going to answer, and then I’d have to call Mum, and that would be...probably less good. This is Arthur, sorry, I should have said that at the beginning, shouldn't I?"

“Arthur, I _know_ it’s you, it is _obviously_ you, and anyway I could see it on the--oh, never mind. What is it?”

“Right. Well. Do you have a minute?”

“ _One_ minute, yes,” Martin said guardedly. It was beginning to appear that voicemail would have been the quicker option after all. “One. Go.”

“One minute. I’ll speak quickly. So you know that time after the stag do to Monte Carlo--the one where they came back with their heads all shaved, and one of them was left behind in the aisle by accident, and he got locked into the plane overnight and was sick all over the--”

“Yes,” Martin said. “I remember perfectly. Please don’t say another word.”

There was silence for a while.

“I meant another word _about that incident_ ,” Martin snapped. “Arthur, why have you called me?”

“Oh! Right-o, Skip, I only meant to say that ever since that incident, about which I won’t be saying another word, I’ve been very careful to go back at the end of every flight and check that there aren’t any bodies of any kind left behind anywhere on the plane, and I almost forgot to do it tonight on the return trip from Glasgow, but then I remembered when I was nearly to the car park and went back, and it was a good thing, too, as it turns out. Although he’s terribly cross and won’t listen to anything I have to say.”

Martin hit his head against the steering wheel of the van three times in quick succession. The third time he didn’t bother picking it up again, just let his forehead rest there against the cool molded plastic. “Arthur, what are you trying to tell me? Is there a drunken passenger, right now, in our aeroplane?”

“No! Not drunken,” Arthur said quickly. “He’s just slightly under the weather, I believe. Perhaps more than slightly. Also, not a passenger. It’s Douglas.”

“I’m confused,” Martin said.

“So is he. A bit. I think. Could you speak to him, possibly, or if you can come down here that would be even better, because I really don’t think he should sleep here all night no matter what he says.”

“Arthur, are you telling me that Douglas is there, with you, at this moment? If he is, please give him the phone. Right now.”

There was a muffled squabbling at the other end of the line that went on for over a minute. Martin, still resting his head against the steering wheel, began to doze off. He woke with a jerk as a gravelly voice barely recognisable as Douglas’s said harshly in his ear, “Martin, ignore this call and don’t pick up your phone again. Everything is _fine_. Good night,” and hung up.

Well then. Everything fine. Excellent. He could just...go home, then. Good.

He started the van, fully intending to drive straight to his house, but then hesitated and was lost. “Oh, _balls_ ,” Martin said finally. He pulled out his phone again, sent a quick text to Arthur ( _on my way don’t repeat DO NOT call Carolyn_ ), then drove toward the blasted airport.

*

Arthur met him at the boarding door, looking guilty and relieved and worried all at once. 

“Where is he?” Martin demanded.

“Four-D. I think he’s just gone to sleep, in fact, Skip, maybe don’t--no, right, yes, go ahead then,” Arthur said as Martin shoved past him and strode to the back of the plane. 

“Douglas, what the hell are you playing at?” 

“Oh, do sod off,” snarled the heap of airline blankets in seat 4D. “ _Sir,_ ” it added as a sarcastic afterthought, and broke into a round of harsh, painful-sounding coughs. 

“He’s ill,” Arthur explained helpfully.

“Yes, thank you, I did gather as much,” Martin said. “Why is he _here_?”

Arthur shrugged. “He wouldn’t exactly say. Only that he was perfectly comfortable where he was. Plus a lot of Douglassy things that basically boil down to ‘go away and leave me alone.’ He said he’d only have to come back for the flight to Madrid and he’d just as soon sleep here on the plane.”

“Madrid isn’t for another two days!”

“I know! I explained that to him. A lot. Then I phoned you. Sorry.”

Martin turned back to the pile of blankets and prodded it with two fingers in what he estimated to be the shoulder region. “Douglas, this is ridiculous. If you’re too ill to drive, let one of us take you home. Or do you want us to phone Helena and have her pick you up?”

Douglas twisted round, shedding enough of the blankets to be able to fix Martin with a malevolent glare. 

“Oh,” Martin said, taking a step back. “Er...trouble at home, is it?”

“That,” Douglas rasped, “is none of your business.”

“Oh,” Martin said again. “Well. But you can’t possibly expect us to just go away and let you sleep on the plane for two nights! Are you delusional?” He frowned and looked more closely at Douglas. “Wait, _are_ you delusional?” He reached out and pressed the back of his hand hesitantly against Douglas’s forehead, half expecting to be snarled at again, but Douglas merely shut his eyes and gave an impatient sigh.

“No more than usual,” he said. “Not that I wouldn’t mind a nice break from reality.”

“You’re awfully warm, anyway,” Martin said doubtfully. “And you’re certainly not acting very rational.” He looked back at Arthur. “How was he during the flight?”

“Right,” Douglas said. “If you won’t leave me in peace, I’m not going to stick around to be discussed and fussed over by the pair of you. I’m leaving.” He pushed himself up out of the seat, only to double over almost immediately with another coughing fit. 

“I’m nearly certain I can almost remember the correct way to do CPR,” Arthur offered. “In case he falls over.”

Douglas straightened up at once, scarlet-faced and clutching at his diaphragm. “Martin,” he managed to gasp out. “I’ll go with Martin.”

*

“You can drop me at the Fitton Inn,” Douglas said, when they were in Martin’s van and Arthur had waved them a cheerily relieved farewell.

“The Fitton-- Douglas, really? Look, whatever’s going on with you and Helena, it’s your house, she’s your _wife_ , I’m sure she wouldn’t want you to--”

“Trust me, she would. Helena had her marriage vows rewritten to take out the clause _in sickness and in health._ ” 

Martin just looked at him, unable to tell if he were joking or not. 

“She’s a bit of a germophobe,” Douglas explained. “It’s complicated. In any case, I never get ill, so it’s not usually a problem.”

“Well, you’re ill _now_ ,” Martin pointed out. “Did she actually tell you not to come home?”

Douglas pulled his coat closer around himself and looked out the passenger-side window. “I told her we’d had a last-minute booking for Hong Kong. I’m not particularly keen for her to see me in this state.”

“Ah,” said Martin. 

Douglas shot him a watery-eyed glare. “How many times is it you’ve been married, again?”

“None,” Martin sighed. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t--”

“And how many long-term relationships, exactly?”

Martin set his jaw and started the van.

He couldn’t seem to make himself drive to the hotel, though, as tired as he was and as much as he longed for this day to be over. He’d suffered through the flu on his own once, two winters ago on a holiday weekend when all his flatmates were away, and it wasn’t an experience he’d wish on his worst enemy. He could still vividly remember the despair of making the long, shaky journey down three flights of stairs to heat up a tin of soup, then discovering he hadn’t the strength to climb back up to his room again. He hadn’t even been able to make it to the living-room sofa, in fact, but got so dizzy he’d passed out on the kitchen floor, where he’d lain for next few hours shivering and hallucinating and wondering, in his brief periods of lucidity, whether anyone would come home in time to save his body from being partially eaten by the economics student’s horrible cats.

Of course, there wouldn’t be cats at the Fitton Inn. Nor stairs. There might even be room service. But even so.

“Oh god,” Douglas groaned, when the van came to a stop and he saw where they’d pulled up. “Martin, no. I’m not stopping at your quaint bohemian hovel. I’ll catch something worse than this. Tuberculosis, no doubt.”

“It’s perfectly clean, thanks,” Martin said frostily. “I don’t think you should be on your own in this state, that’s all. And may I remind you, you were initially planning to spend the night _in an unheated aeroplane_.”

Douglas drew in breath, probably to launch more protests, but went into another coughing fit instead. It lasted for some time.

“Or I could run you over to A&E?” Martin suggested, as he was finally winding down. Douglas shook his head, eyes closed. After a long minute, he unbuckled his seatbelt and got out of the van.


	2. Chapter 2

Under other circumstances, Martin would have blushed, allowing Douglas to see the extremely humble conditions in which he lived. He blushed a bit anyway, truth be told. Douglas was clearly beyond making cutting remarks, though. He grumbled a little at the number of stairs between the front door and Martin’s top-floor room, but after the first flight he needed to save his breath for climbing, and by the time they reached the attic he was wheezing and red-faced, labouring for air in great ragged gasps. 

“God, _do_ you need CPR?” Martin worried. “I’m sure I could do better at it than Arthur, but just the same...I’m awfully sorry, Douglas. Are you, you’re not having a heart attack, or--”

Douglas waved him away vehemently. “Tea,” he managed. “You might. Offer me. A cup of.”

“Oh,” said Martin. “Well, yes. The bed’s yours, of course, if you want to lie down. I’ll take the sofa,” he offered, virtuously but unnecessarily, it seemed, as Douglas had been making a beeline for the bed from the moment he’d entered the room. A rather unsteady and weaving beeline, but bees did weave…

“Milk, one sugar,” Douglas prompted.

“Yes, I _know_ ,” Martin said, and went back downstairs. There was an electric kettle in his room and even a mini-fridge (he’d saved for it for ages), but he went down to the kitchen anyhow, and while the kettle was on he phoned Helena. 

“Oh, right,” Helena said vaguely, when Martin explained the situation to her. “Thanks awfully for looking after him, then. You’re a good friend, Martin.”

“That’s not what I-- Look, I really think he’d be more comfortable at home, in his own bed, don’t you?”

“Oh, I shouldn’t think it would matter much to him. Any port in a storm, as they say. Anyway, I’ve got to dash--I’m late for my tai chi session. Thanks again! You really must come round for a drink sometime,” Helena said, and hung up before Martin could stammer out another protest.

It must have been quite a tiff they’d had, then, Martin reflected, as he fixed a cup of weak tea and some toast. Martin could well imagine that Douglas would be trying to live with, even if you were by some unimaginable circumstance in love with him, but he still felt rather indignant on Douglas’s behalf. Not to mention his own. Well, no matter. He didn’t really mind sleeping on his sofa for one night, and Douglas would surely prove easier to handle in his current weakened state than when he was at full capacity.

Douglas was, in fact, already asleep by the time Martin made it back up to the attic. He had collapsed on top of the covers, with his shoes kicked off and his shirt half unbuttoned, his tie still clutched loosely in one hand. Martin took it from him carefully, then held his breath when Douglas twitched and murmured a few plaintive syllables--but he subsided into sleep again straightaway, and didn’t have a word to say about it when Martin tiptoed away and set to work on the tea and toast himself.

 _Poor old sod,_ Martin found himself thinking, after he’d shut off the light and tucked himself in with a spare pillow and blanket and lay there listening to the lightly stertorous hitch of Douglas’s breathing in the dark a few metres away. He felt a welling of something that was almost fondness for the man, suddenly, enhanced by his pride in having been magnanimous enough to take him in. That Helena! What sort of a wife-- And wasn’t it awfully late in the evening to be running off to yoga classes, or--

Martin fell asleep before he could complete the thought.

*

The noise woke him at around half past two. Martin had been dreaming uneasily that he’d been made to go to a performance at the opera house in Milan straight from the airport but had left his hat in the taxi, and that in his captain’s uniform he’d been mistaken by the management for one of the ushers. He was loudly and fruitlessly trying to set an aisleful of irate Italians straight, shouting to make himself heard over the caterwauling onstage, when he woke with a start and sat right up, banging his head on the attic ceiling, which came to a low slant over the sofa. 

Disoriented in the dark and forgetting why he was on the bloody sofa in the first place, it took Martin a minute to register that the ringing in his ears wasn’t from hitting his head, nor was it an echo of his dream. It was someone actually singing.


	3. Chapter 3

_“La donna è mobile,”_ Douglas warbled in a throat-cracked baritone. _"Qual piuma el vento,”_ and then broke off in a fit of coughing that roused Martin properly.

“Douglas,” he whispered. “Stop that. Go back to sleep. Do you hear me?”

 _“Muta d’accento e di pensiero,”_ Douglas responded mournfully, then coughed so hard he began to choke.

“Christ!” Martin hissed, and staggered up off the sofa, groping toward the bed in the dark. Douglas managed to quit coughing by the time he got there, but continued breathing in great ragged gasps that snagged on something every time. Still half-asleep, Martin somehow manhandled him into a sitting position and got him propped up with a pillow or two behind his back. “What do you need? Water?”

 _“Sans vergogne, coup sur coup, un ivrogne boit tout,”_ Douglas sang in a strangled whisper. Martin frowned and put the back of his wrist to Douglas’s forehead.

“God, you’re on fire. Er...all right. Back in a tick. Keep quiet, will you? I’ve got housemates, you know.” He fetched a glass of water and a few paracetamol tablets from the hall toilet and got Douglas to swallow the lot, with a bit of coaxing, but wished he hadn’t when Douglas broke forth into song again, his voice restored.

_“Jeune adepte du tonneau, n’en excepte que l’eau! Que ta gloire, tes amours--”_

Someone downstairs banged on their ceiling with a broom handle, rattling Martin’s floorboards. “Oi! Keep it down, mate, some of us have got exams in the morning!”

“Sorry!” Martin called back down, then muttered “Yeah, I’ll remember that the next time you throw a rave down there when I’ve got a six a.m. flight to China the next day, _mate_.”

 _“Ma la fate a tanti e tanti,”_ Douglas sang, changing key. _"Che credible no e.”_

“Seriously, though, you’re not going to serenade me all night, are you?” Martin said worriedly. “Douglas?”

Douglas looked drowsy, glazed-over. With half-hooded eyes he stared vaguely through Martin with no sign of recognition whatsoever. _“A tanti e tanti e tanti,”_ he crooned on restlessly. _“Se gridano gli amanti…”_

The banging on the ceiling resumed. 

“Oh god,” Martin said faintly.

*

Martin tried various techniques to bring down Douglas’s fever and staunch the flow of delirious song for the next several hours. He checked his temperature with a thermometer borrowed off one of the more sympathetic housemates, and found that it wasn’t dangerously high--just enough, apparently, to disorient him into thinking he was bloody Pavarotti for the night. The same housemate gently dissuaded Martin from shoving Douglas fully-clothed into a cold shower, and brought him a basin and a damp flannel instead. 

_“Car tu n’avais eu qu’a paraître,”_ Douglas proclaimed fitfully, tossing on Martin’s pillows. _“Qu’à jeter un regard sur moi.”_

Martin strongly considered gagging him with the flannel. He swiped it reluctantly down Douglas’s face instead, and was rewarded with a grateful sigh--and silence. “Oh, hello,” Martin said in surprise, but it was short-lived; Douglas began to toss and croon again within a minute. Martin applied the cloth to the other side of his face, with the same happy result, but the relief was equally brief.

Eventually, very unhappily, Martin resorted to getting into the bed and lying down next to him, keeping up a more or less continuous reapplication of the cool flannel to Douglas’s overheated face and neck. This was a bit more restful than the alternative, but not much; every time Martin dozed off, or paused to refresh the flannel with cooler water, a few lyrics would burst forth anew. It was as if he were attempting to nurse a broken music box to sleep. Martin began to feel rather delirious himself.

“Oh, hang on, I know that one,” he said, at one interval. “You’ve sung it to Arthur. Loads of times. Quite catchy actually. _Si, lo giuro! Questa lama! Scen-der-a-dell--_ ” Martin broke off abruptly, the next bit of the line dying in his throat as Douglas not only ceased to sing, but turned to look at Martin as if actually seeing him for the first time in hours.

“Martin?” he murmured, blinking in apparent confusion. “Good lord. What on earth.”

“You’re...awake, then, are you?” Martin said warily, not daring to believe it.

“How could I avoid it, with you yowling in my ear like that?” Douglas turned his back grumpily. “As if I weren’t feeling ill enough. Do be quiet and let a man get some rest, can’t you?”

*

If Martin expected a weakened and apologetic Douglas in the morning, a shamefaced Douglas feebly and contritely accepting tea and offering to make it all up to him in any way possible, he was sorely disappointed. In fact, Douglas had disappeared altogether, which caused Martin a few moments of confused alarm until he heard bursts of distant laughter from several flights below.

Unbelievingly, he crept down to the kitchen and found Douglas not only on his feet but scrubbed and dressed, tie knotted and shirtsleeves rolled to the elbow, expertly plating an omelet and regaling his enthralled housemates with the story of the time Martin had exploded an egg in the galley microwave mid-flight, causing an alarmed passenger to alert the CAA on her mobile. 

“Oh, there you are, Martin,” Douglas said, spotting him in the doorway. “Breakfast?”

“No, thank you,” Martin said, with as much ice as he could get into it. “Feeling better, are you?”

“Much better. Only needed a spot of rest, just as I said. Sure you won't have any omelet? You’re looking a bit rough today, in fact, if you don't mind my saying so. Hope I didn't pass anything along to you.”

“I'm going back to bed in a moment,” Martin informed him. “Give Helena a message for me when you see her next, will you?”

“What’s that?”

 _“Questa lama scendera dell’empio in core,”_ Martin said blackly. “She'll know what I mean, I expect. Good night.” He turned to trudge back up the three flights of stairs.

“I'll bring you up a cup of tea before I go,” Douglas called after him. “ _Zitta, riposa, mia bella Mimi_ \--what? What did I say? Ah, well,” he sighed, turning back to Martin’s housemates, who'd become suddenly very attentive to their breakfasts. “You know how he is. Terribly difficult when he’s ill.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of a silly ending - but I hated to leave this as an abandoned WIP for all eternity!
> 
> For the curious, Douglas is singing bits of the following arias:
> 
> 1\. "La donna è mobile" from Verdi's _Rigoletto_  
>  2\. "Vin ou bière" from Gounod's _Faust_  
>  3\. "Donne mie la fate a tanti" from Mozart's _Cosi fan Tutte_  
>  4\. "La fleur que tu m'avais jetée" from Bizet's _Carmen_  
>  5\. "Questa lama scendera..." Not an aria, but a random bit of Verdi's _Il Trovatore_ that I have always loved, which translates to "I will plunge this blade to the hilt in his heart"  
>  6\. ...and a tiny bit of Rodolfo singing to the dying Mimi in act 4 of Puccini's _La Bohème_.


End file.
